Skip the FOMO. Far Far West deserves a look if you want co-op shooting with solo viability, Last Flag is a hard pass unless it fundamentally rebuilds its player pipeline, and Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is the safe money for turn-based faithfuls. Everything else? Wait for a sale or a player-count rebound.
The Anti-Hype Hit: Far Far West
Here's what most Steam week-in coverage gets wrong: revenue rank is a terrible proxy for whether you'll stick with a game. Far Far West sits at #3 in revenue, trailing only Counter-Strike 2 and Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. That sounds like validation. It's actually a warning sign for the impatient buyer.
The game comes from Evil Raptor, an eight-person French studio. No publisher muscle. No years of Early Access buildup. The Steam page is almost aggressively unpolished. And yet concurrent players are holding strong post-launch. The pattern here is the same one we saw with Peak and Phasmophobia before it: small-team multiplayer hits that explode because they solve a specific social problem, not because they out-spend competitors.
What problem does Far Far West solve? Cooperative shooter fatigue. Left 4 Dead and Vermintide built their loops around mandatory group coordination. Drop-in solo players get punished by difficulty spikes or matchmaking deserts. Far Far West's singleplayer component isn't a tacked-on campaign—it's a genuine alternate path through the same content. That matters more than the "robot cowboy wizard" novelty that drove Next Fest buzz.
The hidden variable: server population velocity. Games in this genre live or die by whether Week 2 retention holds above 40% of launch peak. Vermintide 2 managed it. Back 4 Blood didn't. Far Far West has no cross-platform safety net, no Game Pass subsidy, and an eight-person team that will struggle to patch at AAA cadence. If you're buying in now, you're betting on the community, not the roadmap.
Verdict for Far Far West:
- Play now if: You have 1-2 regular co-op partners and want something fresh before the inevitable autumn AAA crush
- Wait for sale if: You're solo-curious; the singleplayer exists but the build variety may not satisfy without community guides
- Skip if: You need ranked progression, cosmetic economies, or guaranteed long-term support
The Cautionary Tale: Concord
Sony's Firewalk Studios launched Concord on August 23, 2024. First-person 5v5 hero shooter with cinematic flair. Formula sounds contemporary—Overwatch's hero DNA, Destiny's aesthetic sensibility, the current vogue for ability-driven gunplay. The result? A player base that cratered fast enough to become a week-in statistic rather than a success story, with servers shutting down just two weeks post-launch.
This isn't about quality in a vacuum. The market for new competitive shooters has become pathologically unforgiving. 2023's Hyenas cancellation established the pattern. 2024's Concord proved it again. The problem isn't that Concord failed to find differentiation; it's that differentiation no longer matters if you can't crack the discovery algorithm and the influencer pipeline simultaneously.
The trade-off most miss: a hero shooter demands learning investment from players already committed to Overwatch, Valorant, or the surviving competitive shooters. You're not competing for "shooter fans." You're competing for cognitive bandwidth. Someone logging 200 hours annually into one competitive game does not have 200 more for yours. They have maybe 20. And those 20 go to whatever their friends are already playing.
Concord's specific wound was the classic empty-queue death spiral. Matchmaking requires population. Population requires matchmaking. Breaking this requires either a dramatic content relaunch (see: Rainbow Six Siege's Operation Health) or a platform deal that force-feeds players. Neither materialized, and the game was delisted before either could be attempted.
Verdict for Concord:
- Avoid entirely—the game is no longer playable, making this a definitive object lesson rather than a live option
- Revisit only academically if you want to understand how even well-funded hero shooters can fail the population threshold test
- Apply to future releases: Any new hero shooter must demonstrate sustained concurrent numbers above 10,000 before it deserves your learning investment
The Incumbent: Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era
Ubisoft's franchise revival is positioned for a 2025 release. This is the least surprising anticipated result and therefore the most dangerous for decision-making. Nostalgia pre-orders inflate expectations regardless of long-term quality. Heroes III still has an active competitive scene decades later. Heroes VII does not.
What separates sustainable franchise revivals from expensive disappointments? Mod toolchain maturity and UI responsiveness. Old-school turn-based strategy players will tolerate dated graphics. They will not tolerate slow interface feedback or limited custom map support. Olden Era's upcoming status means both variables remain unproven.
The asymmetry here: Ubisoft's resource advantage means faster patching than Evil Raptor can manage for Far Far West. It also means higher baseline pricing and more aggressive DLC roadmaps. The franchise history includes both the generous HD Edition treatment and the microtransaction-laden Might & Magic: Chess Royale. Corporate memory is short. Player memory is not.
Verdict for Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era:
- Pre-order only if: You played 50+ hours of any previous Heroes entry and accept launch risk
- Wait for full release if: You want campaign completeness or mod stability
- Wait for deep sale if: You're curious but not committed; turn-based strategy has no player-population urgency
How to Actually Use This Week's Data
Steam week-in articles often function as entertainment disguised as guidance. Here's the decision shortcut: filter every game through time-to-fun versus time-to-abandonment.
| Game | Time-to-Fun | Population Risk | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Far Far West | Low (immediate co-op) | High (Week 2 cliff possible) | Groups with schedule alignment |
| Concord | N/A (delisted) | N/A (unplayable) | No one currently |
| Olden Era | Medium-High (turn-based pacing) | Low (singleplayer viable) | Franchise veterans, patient strategists |
The hidden variable in your personal calculus: your refund window. Steam's two-hour policy is generous for linear games, useless for multiplayer ecosystems that don't show their population problems until hour five. For Far Far West specifically, treat hours 2-6 as your real evaluation period. The tutorial won't show you matchmaking health. The early unlocks won't reveal build diversity. Only sustained play exposes whether the community has enough depth to survive its own hype.
The One Thing to Do Differently
Stop treating Steam revenue charts as recommendations. They're lagging indicators of marketing spend and nostalgia coefficient, not leading indicators of where you'll spend your next hundred hours. This week, that means ignoring Concord's fate as a warning rather than a live option, treating Far Far West as a conditional bet rather than a validated hit, and recognizing Olden Era's anticipated position as franchise gravity working as intended—not as proof of current quality. Your library and your wallet both benefit from reading the numbers against their grain.
